Cycles of Influence: Reflections on 40 Years of an “Unused” Marketing Degree
“You never worked in marketing?! You must tell me your career journey and how you became a professor.”
Dr. Roger Blackwell, retired Ohio State Max M. Fisher College of Business professor and business author, gazed at me with full attention, genuinely interested in knowing what I’d done since taking his marketing course in the autumn semester of 1984.
On February 6, 2026, a snowy Friday evening, I met Dr. Blackwell again at the OSU Faculty Club on the Oval, just two buildings down from our old classroom in Hagerty Hall, the Business College’s former home. We were attending a Faculty Roundtable dinner discussing fragmentation in career and life. In other words, how might we bring our whole selves (including our backgrounds, culture, values, and especially faith traditions) to our professional endeavors to achieve greater impacts.
Though he asked for detail, I provided an abbreviated overview of my early career that progressed from nonprofit to government to the Fortune 500. My titles (grant writer, economic development director, manager of communications and government affairs), and subsequent pay raises, were fabulous. But something was missing.
At the 10-year mark, I was feeling fragmented. So, I quit and began to volunteer. This led to my teaching position with OSU, where I’ve served for 30 years now. But interestingly, all this time, not one job has included “marketing” in the title or position description.
A non sequitur? Definitely. A fragmented career? Perhaps. But this Roundtable conversation was an unforeseen opportunity to reflect on how my degree in marketing gave a foundation and even led up to that very evening.
Marketing is about understanding people. While often used narrowly to promote products or influence behavior, it is also a manifestation of Daniel Goleman’s marketing approach on social and emotional intelligence, and of adult development, motivation, and learning theories. Fully understood (and unfragmented), marketing can provide a foundation upon which to build any career that involves people.
Today, with the help of multiple mentors and encouragers, I have been able to build upon that marketing foundation by adding a master’s degree in Sociology and a PhD in Adult Nonformal Learning Theory to finally understand how it all fits. Here at Ohio State, my deep work in leadership and mentoring for workforce development is about understanding people, an explicit component of marketing. As it turns out, I use it every single day.
Thank you, Dr. Blackwell.
